June 5, 2025
FreeBSD’s reputation for reliability and rock-solid stability is well earned. But when it comes to Wi-Fi, it’s had a rougher ride. For years, users struggled with slow speeds and outdated defaults.
That’s been a long-standing pain point. The good news? That’s no longer the case.
What’s Happening Now
As of 2025, FreeBSD’s Wi-Fi support is undergoing one of its most significant overhauls in years. Developers are actively working to enable easy porting of modern drivers from Linux, including the iwlwifi driver. The effort will greatly improve support for recent Intel wireless chipsets—a major step toward broader laptop compatibility.
At the same time, the core net80211 wireless stack is being updated to support newer protocols like WPA3, as well as upcoming 802.11 standards. These changes are modernizing the foundation of FreeBSD’s wireless networking.
Testing is ramping up across a wider range of laptops and hardware configurations, improving reliability and performance for everyday users.
There’s growing recognition that strong Wi-Fi support is essential for anyone hoping to use FreeBSD as a daily driver—whether you’re a developer, student, or sysadmin. Wireless just needs to work. And now, it increasingly does.
How We Got Here
To understand how far we’ve come, it helps to look back at the road that led to today, starting with the earliest wireless work in FreeBSD.
The Early Years
In the early 2000s, Sam Leffler and his consulting team built the in-kernel 802.11 stack, net80211. At the time, it was ahead of its era, supporting features like access point mode, monitor mode, and robust network management.
Sam also enabled early support for Atheros and Ralink chipsets. His contributions were foundational—and to this day, no one has committed more wireless code to the FreeBSD tree. In the early 2010s, Adrian Chadd stepped in to continue this work. He focused on performance and stability, especially for the Atheros ath (and ath_hal) drivers. Adrian also improved debugging, and conducted real-world testing across consumer devices. His efforts kept Wi-Fi usable through a critical transition period. By the mid-2010’s key volunteer developer priorities shifted and with less efforts focused on complex driver work, progress slowed.
A Renewed Push
In recent years, the Project has seen real momentum.
Recognizing how vital it is for desktop and laptop adoption, the FreeBSD Foundation began investing directly in wireless usability, by funding developers like Björn Zeeb and Tom Jones.
Their efforts included trying multiple approaches to modernize key parts of the stack and also porting drivers from both OpenBSD and Linux. That work, combined with help from the community to test, patch, and document longstanding Wi-Fi issues, accelerated progress.
Users can now expect up to 10x faster Wi-Fi speeds in FreeBSD 14.3 compared to previous default configurations, a dramatic improvement for laptop and desktop users alike.
Looking Ahead
Thanks to dedicated contributors, Foundation-backed development, and a growing focus on usability, FreeBSD is making steady strides. If you’ve been waiting for a better wireless experience before trying FreeBSD on your laptop, 2025 is shaping up to be a great time to dive in.
For those eager to experience these advancements firsthand, the FreeBSD Foundation recently published a detailed guide and accompanying video on unlocking high-speed Wi-Fi in FreeBSD 14. This resource walks users through building the upcoming 14.3 kernel to enable modern Intel Wi-Fi support, particularly beneficial for devices like the Framework laptop. You can explore the guide here: How to unlock high speed Wi-Fi on FreeBSD 14.
How You Can Help
Improving Wi-Fi support is a community effort—and there are plenty of ways to get involved. If you’re using FreeBSD on a laptop, sharing your hardware details, reporting issues, or simply testing new drivers can make a real difference. And if you’d like to support this work more directly, contributing to the FreeBSD Foundation helps fund the development that’s pushing wireless support forward. Every bit counts.